In a response to a class-action lawsuit claiming Anheuser-Busch waters down its beer, the company said it does its own alcohol testing at its facilities and is confident it will win the case in court.

The lawsuit, which was filed in several states, accuses the brewer of cheating customers out of the advertised alcohol content by adding water just before bottling.

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Kansas City's Boulevard Brewing Company, the 10th largest craft-brewing company in the country, said it takes steps to make sure the alcohol content advertised on the bottle is accurate.

"The more sugar you have for the yeast to eat, the more alcohol you're going to have in the beer," said Jeremy Danner of Boulevard Brewing Company.

The company said it tests the alcohol levels at several stages during the operation. Danner said the brewery is required by law to make sure its labels are accurate. There can be a .03 margin of error, but larger samples need to average out to what the bottle says.

"You can make whatever alcohol percentage you want, and they don't regulate that," he said. "But once you decide to put that on the label, you are held to a pretty strict tolerance of alcohol by volume."

"For all of our beers, we have a target alcohol percentage we are trying to hit," said senior chemist Joe Palauski.

Fellow brewers said they think the trouble for Anheuser-Busch is probably more of a misunderstanding than a scandal.

"If you were to dilute any product, obviously you could sell more of it for a lower cost," Danner said. "A company that big, there really is no potential upside because they are a gigantic multinational corporation. They are being watched and are highly visible."